8 Skin Clearing Tips From an Esthetician
Helping my clients, friends, and families find their way to clear and healthy skin is one of my favorite parts of being an esthetician. When you feel good about your skin clarity and can confidently go out fresh-faced, with no makeup its one of the best feelings!
Here are my top tips for finding your way to a clear, even, and radiant complexion. ⤵️
scrub me secret: I love to help tweak and update your at-home skincare routine by giving you skincare product options and skincare routine ideas that help you achieve your skincare goals. I often meet with new clients in person or via text to go over their current skincare routine to see what might need changing.
Incorporate a niacinamide product into your routine:
Niacinamide, or vitamin B3 reduces unwanted red, pink, or brown pigmented markings on our skin. This ingredient has anti-inflammatory properties that fight redness and improve barrier function, which is really helpful for keeping skin clear and even.
You can use a niacinamide serum or a niacinamide toner on a daily or every-other-day basis.
scrub me secret: In the past 7-8 months I incorporated a niacinamide toner from Good Molecules into my skincare routine. I use this toner after cleansing in the morning 4x a week. I think it has really been helpful in reducing the red/pink markings that linger after a small pimple.
Take review of your products that exfoliate or create cell turnover:
Products like retinol, retinoids, enzymes, AHA’s, and physical scrubs are helpful for keeping our skin smooth, youthful, and clean but having too many of these products in your routine or using them too often can result in red, bumpy, textured, and/or excessively dry skin.
If you’re using a retinoid, a product with an AHA, and some type of enzyme then you are doing a bit too much for your skin. Even just having 1 or 2 cell turnover products in your routine that are used daily can damage your skin. I think using an exfoliating or retinoid product 1-3x a week is best for clear and healthy skin.
On the opposite end, if you have no exfoliants or retinols in your routine at all then your skin could experience some dullness or buildup that causes texture or blackheads. If you have nothing like this in your routine I find that a once-weekly mask is the best place to start.
Use soothing skincare products:
Whenever I meet someone who is striving toward clearer skin I always ask what type of calming or soothing skincare is in their routine. This is because calming and soothing skincare items have anti-inflammatory properties that help reduce redness and puffiness that comes along with a pimple or abrasions on the skin. When we can reduce this inflammation our skin will be healthier and clearer.
Adding a soothing skincare item to your routine is actually a really easy item to incorporate because most of the time these items don’t cause any complications or sensitivities in the skin and you can use them morning or night. The Hale & Hush Soothing powder is a great product that you can add to your moisturizer to add soothing properties to your current skincare routine. Ology Essentials also has some amazing soothing facial items.
scrub me secret: I always talk about how I love CBD skincare items so much. This is because CBD skincare items have amazing anti-inflammatory benefits. Many of my clients who struggle with acne or sensitive skin have found that CBD skincare items have brought them great skin-clearing results.
4. Try changing up your cleanser:
Sometimes I find that switching your facial cleanser is the key to clearing your complexion. If you find yourself in a place where you’re struggling with some breakouts or small bumps on your skin and nothing seems to work try switching up what you wash your face with.
My blog post Esthetician Recommended Facial Cleansers is a helpful guide for choosing a new cleanser for your skin.
5. Get regular facials:
Visiting a trusted esthetician for a facial every 4-6 weeks is one of the best ways to ensure you’ll have the clearest, healthiest skin possible. During a facial, your pores are cleaned and any imperfections in your skin are treated. An esthetician has professional knowledge, skills, technology, and tools that they can use to help you reach your goals more quickly than if you were working on your skin on your own.
6. Utilize light therapies like LED and high frequency:
LED and high-frequency light therapies are tools that estheticians and skincare professionals have used for decades to help heal and clear our client’s skin. Now these helpful light therapy devices are more available to consumers to use at home. This is good news for everyone! You can now experience light therapy during your facial treatments AND at home.
A high-quality blue LED device kills bacteria in the skin that causes whiteheads and acne. A great red LED device supports collagen and elastin strengthening and renewal, helping skin to look and feel more smooth and even. I like Omnilux, Hooga, and Dr. Dennis Gross devices for LED therapy.
scrub me secret: in order to get actual visible benefits from LED you’ll need a high-quality device. Some lower quality, lower priced LED devices don’t have the right amount of bulbs or the right quality of light bulbs. The companies I recommend above are trusted ones!
7. Use a spot treatment instead of picking:
Picking at your skin and popping pimples is one of the main ways you can cause imperfections in your complexion. When you pick at flaky skin, texture areas, or small bumps, you are causing inflammation and other damage that results in a small mark or scab most of the time. Popping pimples and blackheads create the same kind of inflammation/damage and also spread bacteria.
I recommend spot-treating pimples and acne with bacteria-clearing spot treatment instead of popping or picking. For textured skin and small red bumps, it’s better to treat that with calming skincare (like I mentioned in #3) or you can even treat your skin with hydrocortisone to take away redness and visible puffiness.
You can find my favorite spot treatments in the blog post linked here.
8. Be diligent & consistent with your skincare:
As an esthetician, I’m always so proud when someone tells me they’ve been keeping up with their daily and weekly skincare routine. That’s because I know how great everyone’s skin can look when they use the right products for their skin on a consistent basis. Our skin is a living organism and our cells are constantly going through a turnover/renewal process. Our skin endures daily exposure to debris like sweat, dust, and environmental items. Our skin also takes on damage from UV, blue light, and free radicals. These daily changes and exposures are why a consistent and diligent skincare routine is really important.